Salem in 1928

World Events

• Herbert Hoover sweeps into the White House with 444 electoral votes, defeating Al Smith ~ the first Catholic nominated to be president.
• Chiang Kai-shek is named Chairman of the National Military Council of the Nationalist government of the Republic of China.
• Famine claims 25 million lives in Soviet Union.
• Haile Selassie is crowned king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
• In England the women's voting age is lower from 3o to 21.
• The Kellogg–Briand Pact is signed in Paris, the first treaty to outlaw aggressive war.
• Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
• Mickey Mouse is introduced in Disney cartoon movies. Mae West is "Diamond Lil" on Broadway. The Academy Award goes to "Broadway Melody". 
• The Pulitzer Prize awarded to Scarlet Sister Mary, Julia Peterkin. The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the three volume Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Unset. It remains a classic for its "powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages".

In Salem
An orphan before he was 10 years old, young Herbert Hoover was sent to Newburg in 1888 to live with his aunt and uncle. In the next year, his uncle, Dr. Henry Minthorn, opened a land-settlement office in Salem, and the family moved into a house at Hazel and Highland Avenue. (see below)

According to remembrances of Hoover Published in the Capital Journal, he was a quiet, serious teenager with few close friends and an intense appreciation for the outdoors. He was introduced to literature by local educator Jennie Gray who had the greatest influence on his life. With Gray’s help, Hoover left Salem in 1891 to attend Stanford University. In his successful career as a mining engineer, he made a considerable fortune before entering public service.
During his three years in Salem, Hoover became acquainted with another orphan his age, Charles McNary. Hoover's presidency is remembered for the beginning of the Depression era. His 1932 presidential campaign was unsuccessful, but it involved and influenced a ten-year-old Marion County boy named Mark Hatfield. Hoover's final visit to Salem was in August 1955 when, at age 80, he spent a night in Salem’s Senator Hotel. He died in 1964.

When you visit

Dr. Henry Minthorn was a leader in the Society of Friends (Quaker) community here in Salem. He was primarily responsible for the development of the Highland section of the city. The home where they lived still standing on Hazel Street, but too much changed to be recognized. (See above)
The Highland Friends Church that Hoover's family attended is at 580 Highland Avenue, however the handsome building has been sold to another religious institution.

Other Events

• The Hollywood Press, a weekly agricultural newspaper, is established. In 1932 it became the Capital Press.
• The Senator Hotel is built with 111 rooms, 3 tubs and 24 showers. It was in the 1915 Derby Building at northeast Court and High Streets, the location of bus parking at the former Transit Center at Courthouse Square. A photograph shows the hotel as it appeared in about 1957. The hotel was demolished in 1997.
• The Chemeketan Club is organized to promote use and preservation of our out-of-doors. A recent issue of their Chemeketan Bulletin contains pictures and accounts of 1930s hikes in the Salem area.William and Nora Anderson build their home on Court Street.
•  The Andersons owned a sporting goods business downtown and she was a prominent supporter of Salem's cultural life: the Anderson Rooms of the Salem Public Library are named in her honor. The house is now a contributing property in the Court-Chemeketa Historic Residential District in the NEN neighborhood. In order to build their new home, the Andersons had to remove the Spayd cottage, already on the property, where they had lived since 1909.
• Grace McLauglin (or perhaps her parents, the Robertsons) whose home was across the street, offered to put the cottage in her back yard. It remains there, a significant historical property in that historic district. Mrs. Spayd and her husband had purchased the cottage in 1906 from August Wilhelm who bought the property in 1903 and presumably built the cottage.
• The Cole House is built on Capitol Street. Removed for the construction of the State Archives Building in the 1990s, it is now on Hood Street in the Grant neighborhood. It is a designated Local Landmark.

• A Tudor style house is designed by Clarence Smith for Hubert and Rose Stiff at 795 Winter Street. Mr. Stiff was general manager of the H. L. Stiff Furniture Company. The house was sold to Daniel and Edith Jarman in 1942 and Mrs. Jarman continued to live there after her husband's death until 1966. At that time the State of Oregon bought the property and it became the residence of Governor & Mrs. Tom McCall, then of Governor and Mrs. Victor Atiyeh. Bob Koval photographed at that location in 1978. It has recently been photographed in its new location on Winter Street. It was moved in the early 2000s for the construction of the State's North Capitol Mall Office Building. The former residence is now a state office is in this CAN-DO neighborhood. It is also a Local Landmark.

Franklin Home on Portland Road

• North of the city on Portland Road, Olie Franklin and his wife Maude, move into a new Colonial Revival home on 8 acres near their cleaning establishment. The new house is similar to their former home on High Street except a second story has been added.

Franklin Log Cabin

•  A few years later, a neighbor offers a log cabin on his property: it was moved to the Franklin back yard where it is today. A historical architect who examined it recently does not believe this is an authentic cabin of pioneer days, but a replica built in the 1920s to reflect nostalgia for early, pioneer years.

Salem in 1921

World Events

• This year Communist political parties are founded in China, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Portugal, and Spain. (A Communist party had been founded in the U.S. in 1919 and in England in 1920.)
• Adolf Hitler is named leader of the Nazi political party in Germany, His fiery speeches attract large, enthusiastic crowds as he condemns the harsh penalties imposed by the victorious Allies. Rising prices cause major riots in Munich.
• In the U.S., a post-war stock market boom begins.
• The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is dedicated in Arlington Cemetery.
• Glider flights and racing car events are popular, baseball games are broadcast. The first Miss America Pageant is held. The Women's Olympiad begins in Monte Carlo, the first international women's sports event. The US  Figure Skating Association is founded.
• Franklin Roosevelt, nephew of Theodore and a rising Democrat politician, is diagnosed with poliomyelitis and he becomes permanently disabled.
• English novelist John Galsworthy publishes To Let, the last of the Forsyte Saga series. The Pulitzer Prize honors Alice Adams, a novel about a working-girl, by Booth Tarkington. A full-length, silent comedy-drama film, The Kid, stars Jackie Coogan.

In Salem
Commercial steamboats on the Willamette became less frequent. However, shallow draft sternwheelers still signaled for the raising of the lift span. In 1924 drifting ice damaged a ship at the foot of Court Street. These were perilous times for water commerce: higher costs during the Depression ten years later almost stopped river traffic. In 2002 Harvey Fox remembered when, as a youngster selling newspapers from his corner at Court and Commercial, he would listen for the steamboat signal at three o'clock in the afternoon twice a week. It announced the arrival of cargo from Portland. Harvey would rush down to the dock to sell his papers at 5 cents each. He also fondly recalls the delicious cinnamon bun he would purchase from the ship's bakery.

When you visit
Today an excursion stern-wheeler is the last vestige of what was once a vital link in Salem's commercial life: steamboat traffic on the Willamette. The lift span of the former Union Street Railroad Bridge is now locked place and the tracks have been transformed into a platform for pedestrians, bikers and emergency vehicles if they are needed. After an April 2009 opening, the bridge was temporarily closed for lead paint encapsulation, but opened again in May 2010. By summer of 2014, pedestrians walking west on the trestle could look down to the right approaching Wallace Marine Park and see new a path leading to Willamette River lookout. The river now accommodates only the Willamette Queen and recreational water craft.

Other events

• G.E.Halverson becomes mayor.
• The Gospel Mission serves the needy out of the Wade Smith building.
• The fire department establishes a two-platoon system so fire fighters worked every other day.
• The city's streetcars are losing money: Superintendent Billingsley announces a deficit of $43,000.
• The State fairgrounds are annexed to the city.
• The Salem Alliance Church begins service with six families. Mrs. Isabelle White is lay pastor.
• Charles Maxwell, and African-American citizen of Salem had a shoeshine business on State Street that attracted attention. This year a letter signed by the local Ku Klux Klan over a skull and crossbones was published in the Capital Journal which was addressed to him with the message that "We have stood you as long as we intend to stand you, and you must unload, if you don't we will come to see you." He did not leave town and his business grew to two locations. In 1928 he opened the Fat Boy Barbecue in the Hollywood section. With his wife and four daughters, he was admitted to the First Methodist Church as a member and one daughter was married in that church. However, another daughter, Maxine, was denied a room in a women's dormitory at OSU. Mr. Maxwell lost his business during the Depression.
• The Pringle School building is enlarged with the rooms and facilities that would remain until 1987.
  
• The Highland Friends Church is rebuilt on property developed by the Oregon Land Company. J. H. Minthorn, the owner, had donated land for the church. The bell, the side facing stained glass windows, and the decorative gable in the Gothic style with the inscription "1891" were taken from the old church to be used in the present structure. The church, now serving a different religious congregation, is a local Landmark in the Highland neighborhood.

The Becke House

The Compton House

• Bungalows continue to be a favorite new home style as seen in the Becke House on the popular Summer Street of the Grant neighborhood. It was apparently built for Karl and Helen Becke, although they did not live there. The earliest owner-occupants were William and Gertrude Walker who resided here in 1934. Mr. Walker was associated with the Economy Grocery Store. The residence maintains its original appearance and is now a Local Landmark. Also on Summer Street, William Post built a home for Henry Compton and his wife Vera. Their son, Stuart Compton, remembers that in the 1930's Summer Street was not 99E and neighborhood boys played ball in the street. Only a few blocks of these once socially prominent “Summer Street” homes remain today, several of these moved north to their present sites as State buildings of the North Capitol Mall replaced residences. The present owner of the Compton house and his neighbors are preserving the dignified character of this Salem.
• Nearby on Winter Street, the 1921 Ford and Perry houses were built this year. Both were relocated to the Heritage Park on D Street in 2000 when the North Mall Office Building was constructed.
• A house for the Douglas Minto family is built next door to the original home on Saginaw Street. These houses are now National Register properties in the SCAN neighborhood.

Below - From Ben Maxwell's Salem, Oregon, edited by Scott McArthur, 2006:

• Marion County Judge, George Bingham blamed dance halls and a craving for amusement as major causes for divorce. "The family is scattered. They are too busy hunting excitement...Pool halls young men frequent today are the very cradles of crime." Since 1895, the judge and his wife had lived at 1116 Mission Street, a house on an estate that would later, under the ownership of Alice Brown Powell, be named Deepwood.
• Twenty-six new members were installed into the KuKlux Klan at Salem. C. K. Pilkington, Kleagle of the Oregon Realm, said that Klan membership was increasingly rapidly in this locality and that 250 belonged in one local district.

Salem in 1917

World Events

• Woodrow Wilson is inaugurated for the second time. Public opinion turns toward entry in the war on the side of Britain and its countrymen that many Americans feel most relation in family and culture.
• On April 6th, the US Congress declares war with Germany and General Pershing arrives in France with "Doughboy" infantry soldiers of the American Expeditionary Force.
• Tsar Nicholas II abdicates his throne, Grand Duke Michael refuses it and power passes to the Provisional Government.
• Mata Hari is executed by the Allies as a spy.
• Danish West Indies is sold to U.S., later renamed as U.S.Virgin Islands.
• Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first women to serve in the US House of Representatives.
• Dixieland Jass Band records "Livery Stable Blues", the first jazz recording.  "Tiger Rag" follows in a few months.
•  The first Pulitzer Prize recognition goes to Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliot for biography:  Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 Complete.

In Salem
Charles Linza McNary graduated from Stanford University and Willamette University College of Law. His 1914 bid for the State Supreme Court fell one vote short, but it made him available to be appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1917 when Senator Lane died. A progressive Republican, he supported many New Deal measures such as Social Security and TVA. As Minority Leader for the Republicans in the Senate during the New Deal years, he was frequently consulted by President Roosevelt and was credited with preserving the influence of his party He played a major role in obtaining government funding for Bonneville Dam and won a fight for federal forest program, In 1902, McNary married Jessie Breyman who died in an automobile accident near Salem in 1918. In 1923 he married Cornelia Morton. In 1940, he briefly campaigned for president and only reluctantly accepted the vice presidential nomination with Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie in 1940, losing to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Henry Wallace. He died of pneumonia in 1944.

When you visit

McNary home (center) seen during Cherry Festival, year unknown.

Senator McNary was born on a farm near Salem. There are no McNary residences remaining in Salem: his home on Court Street (above), between the Eugene Breyman residence and the YMCA, was demolished. An undated Cherry Festival newspaper photograph (see link) was taken on Court Street near the McNary home and records its appearance. It is symbolic of McNary's relationship with the Breyman family. Charles McNary is remembered in Salem today for two sites. In 1944 the City Council voted to give the Municipal Airport the name McNary Field because he had helped secure federal assistance and cooperation in developing the airport and securing its designation as an army air base during World War II. A high school in the NOLA Neighborhood is also named for Senator McNary

Other Events

• Walter Keyes is elected mayor and will serve two years.
• In the Senate Office Building on a day in July, blindfolded men drew capsules baring draft numbers for enlistment into the Army. In this district, the name of George DeSort (De Sart?) of Silverton was first drawn. By October, Salem was prepared to turn out to welcome Co. M (the local National Guard unit) home from Camp Clackamas. This would be their final home visit before being ordered south, and later to France. (These military items from Ben Maxwell's Salem, Oregon, edited by Scott McArthur, 2006.)
• Beginning this year and until 1927, Salem King's Products has successful packinghouse on Front Street in the present Truitt Brothers facility.
• The Farrar Building is constructed on 325 State Street. The Midget Market was one of many shops occupying space here. From 1930 through 1981, the store to the east was the Smoke Shop, not only selling cigars, but serving food and drinks at a counter. Billiard and cards were played in the back. It became a community institution, serving farm and transient laborers in the Salem area, offering help in temporary shelter and credit. There is also a 1992 photograph. The Farrar Building is a National Register property in the Historic Downtown District and is featured on the SHINE downtown walking tour slide show.

Old Swengle Street farmhouse

• East of Salem, a farmhouse is built on the Pollard Donation Land Grant. This modest Swengle Street residence is possibly the oldest house in the present ELNA neighborhood. No information is available about its first owner.
• In contrast, William McGilchrist. Jr. builds a spacious Colonial Revival home at 695 Summer Street, representing a style of residential architecture popular at that time. In its original location, this was the home of Governor Robert D. Holmes, 1957-59. It was moved north on the same street due to the construction of state buildings in the 1990s. As seen in a recent photograph taken for "Salem's Moving History", the present exterior remains faithful to the original appearance except the shutters at each window have been removed.

McGilchrist House in its new location

• The interior of this Local Landmark is especially interesting because the rooms have retained their proportions although the functions have changed. The ground floor had a generous parlor and living area on the south side with dining, kitchen and servants quarters on the north. Upstairs were the typical four bedrooms and one bath. The fireplaces, built-in cabinets and ceiling light fixtures appear original. The basement, with laundry, storage and wood room, is missing in this new location.
  Currently, it houses a state office in the North Capitol Mall Heritage Park. A photograph is featured on "Salem's Moving History."